If the video embedded above is not viewable, you can see it at these other fine video sharing sites: Vimeo, Viddler and Metacafe.

Welcome back to your favorite cereal show!

Nothing’s new here, we just took a month off to go on vacation, but now we’re back with the same exact vengeance, vim, vigor, and vociferous vehemence as ever! And Hurricane Earl is on our tail, but I digress.

Onto the cereal, muncharoos!

Newman’s Own Sweet Enough Vanilla Almond is an all natural rice and wheat flake cereal. The flakes are coated with a simple and understated vanilla flavor while the almond slivers are large and in charge. The cereal stands up to the sog test by staying crunchy even in milk and the excess sweetness that never quite hits your tongue while on the flake falls gently into the milk for a sweet treat if you finish your cereal the old fashioned way — bowl to mouth. *gulp*

Sweet Enough Vanilla Almond has a perfectly balanced pleasant taste, and could easily be your everyday cereal if you’re looking for a new one!

And now, the nutrition facts Newman’s Own wants you to know:

All Natural Ingredients:
Ingredients: Milled Rice, Rolled Wheat, Sugar, Honey Roasted Almonds (Almonds, Sugar, Honey, Water, Maltodextrin, Salt), Salt, Barley Malt, Natural Flavors, Mixed Tocopherols (Vitamin E) Added For Freshness.

VITAMINS & MINERALS: Ferric Orthophosphate (Iron Source), Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C), Niacinamide (A B Vitamin), Vitamin A Palmitate, Folic Acid (A B Vitamin), Zinc Oxide (Zinc Source), Cyanocobalamin (Vitamin B12), Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B6), Riboflavin (Vitamin B2), Thiamin Mononitrate (Vitamin B1), Vitamin D.

Contains: Wheat, Almonds.

Serv. Size 3/4 Cup (30g)

Cereal Alone:

Calories 110
Fat Cal. 10

Total Fat 1g (2% DV)
Sat. Fat 0g (0% DV)
Trans Fat 0g
Cholest. 0mg (0% DV)
Sodium 125mg (5% DV)
Potassium 65mg (2% DV)
Total Carb. 24g (8% DV)
Dietary Fiber 2g (8% DV)
Sugars 7g
Other Carb. 15g
Protein 2g
Vitamin A (15% DV)
Vitamin C (25% DV)
Calcium (0% DV)
Iron (50% DV)
Vitamin D (10% DV)
Thiamin (25% DV)
Riboflavin (25% DV)
Niacin (25% DV)
Vitamin B6 (25% DV)
Folic Acid (50% DV)
Vitamin B12 (25% DV)
Zinc (10% DV

Taste: Light on vanilla, strong on almond, yummy wheat/rice flake taste and all the excess sweetness goes into the milk!
Box opening: Not gonna lie, a little hard
Bag rippage: None
Bag slippage: None at all, completely opposite to the Flakes ‘N Strawberry experience
Sog factor: A perfect crunch through and through
Allergy alert: Contains wheat, almonds

Cereal Wednesday Bowls:

For more information about the cereal please visit the Newman’s Own website.

Clearly he misses us since we’re on hiatus until the first Wednesday in September, so I figured I’d give a quick shout-out to our number one fan:

We miss you, too, Mike! And all of our adoring fans.

Until September, and beyond, really: Have a good one!

If the video embedded above is not viewable, you can see it at YouTube, Metacafe or Viddler.

Chocolate Chunk Hazelnut Biscotti granola is the “generic” brand sold by the superstore conglomerate Target. It’s an Archer Farms cereal, but there is no independent information listed on the web about this cereal, it’s only shown as associated with Target directly.

Chocolate Chunk Hazelnut Biscotti is big on chocolate and oat flavor. There are definitely big chunks of hazelnut in there but they still have their skin on so it’s an odd flavor in comparison to a hazelnut with its skin removed. Makes it taste kinda like an almond. Don’t get me wrong, I like almonds, but hazelnuts aren’t supposed to taste like almonds. (Ask any Belgian, they’ll tell you.)

Nutrition (or lack thereof) facts:

Nowhere on the web did I find the listing of ingredients in image or written form, so I took a crooked picture of the back of the package for you!

Yay for rolled oats, milled rice, and whole oat flour! High in fat and calories, low on vitamins and minerals, decent on fiber, whole grains, and protein. A good flavor, but very dangerous for people with allergies since there are so many allergens listed. Bonus bowl for cool packaging with a flip-top freshness closure.

Taste: Like a granola bar
Box opening: Excellent
Bag rippage: No bag!
Bag slippage: No bag = no slip!
Sog factor: Slimy coating on an otherwise still crunchy cereal
Allergy alert: Contains hazelnuts and soy; may contain other tree nuts and wheat

Cereal Wednesday Bowls:

For a little bit more information about Chocolate Chunk Hazelnut Biscotti please visit the Target website or go directly to a Target store for the entire enchilada.

Total Plus Omega-3s Honey Almond Flax is a new cereal from General Mills. It’s really very different in texture from Total cereal, but it smells and tastes the same. This cereal was pretty boring to eat, nothing stood out about it, and it’s more exciting in written form than it was in my mouth, so let’s get right to the written stuff:

Total Plus Omega-3s contains 10% of the Daily Value of ALA (Alpha-linolenic acid) and 100% Daily Value of 11 vitamins and minerals. High in fiber and protein, a little high on fat.

If you live to eat you probably won’t enjoy this. If you eat to live, this is a great cereal for you to add to your nutritious breakfast rotation.

Cereal companies: Please use glue to hold your bags in and also please don’t afix coupons over the visual of your product, we like to see what we’re buying!

Taste: Dull and healthy, with a hint of honey and almond
Box opening: Good
Bag rippage: None
Bag slippage: Totally into the bowl (no cereal name pun intended)
Sog factor: Soggy fluffy pillow cases
Allergy alert: Wheat and almond; may contain milk

Cereal Wednesday Bowls:

For more information about Total Plus Omega-3s Honey Almond Flax please visit their site.

If the video embedded above is not viewable, you can see it at Vimeo, Viddler, or Metacafe.

Shake your bon-bon, shake your Cinnabon-bon!

For the 4 millionth week in a row we are reviewing a Kellogg’s product! Why is that? Well, when we’re looking on the shelves at the store we pick what looks good to us. Kellogg’s sure does have its packaging and marketing down to a science, so you get lots of their cereal shoved in your face! But, … do we like it? Let’s find out!

Cinnabon is a multi-grain cereal, heavy on the corn, coated with cinnamon and sugar. It is a breakfast version of the Cinnabon cinnamon bun that is typically sold in malls across America. Those cinnamon buns are SOOOOOOOOOO delicious. And surprisingly, for once, the cinnamon translates to the cereal! So much so, that we just keep on eating the cereal instead of pausing for the soggies test.

Let’s see how Cinnabon stacks up nutrition-wise:

Moderate in nutrients, great in taste, Cinnabon hits a home run with both Poppy and NYCWD. (Rest in peace, Mr. Steinbrenner.)

Taste: Delicious cinnamon and sugar taste, NOM NOM NOM!
Box opening: Fine, until the bag opening and then the box EXPLODED open
Bag rippage: None, but apparently it was too hard
Bag slippage: Slipped out and scared Twitter the Kitty
Sog factor: Very soggy at the end, so eat it quicky!
Allergy alert: Wheat and traces of soybean

NYCWD’s Cereal Wednesday Bowls:

Poppy’s Cereal Wednesday Bowls:

For more information about Kellogg’s Cinnabon please visit their site.

For more information about the original delicious Cinnabon please visit their site.

If the video embedded above is not viewable, you can see it at Vimeo or Metacafe.

Nathan’s International July Fourth Hot Dog Eating Contest is a yearly event held at the Coney Island Nathan’s Famous location. Each year competitors do their best to eat the most Nathan’s hot dogs in 10 minutes. This year Joey Chestnut defended his championship by eating 54 dogs in 10 minutes, which sadly was nowhere near this year’s prediction of surpassing his best of 68 dogs to consume 70 in ten minutes. And you know what was missing this year? Stiff competition. Previously his competitor Takeru Kobayashi was standing next to him eating dogs, trying to oust native Californian Chestnut of his title. This year Kobayashi had a labor dispute (he wanted more money for his eating appearances) so was ineligible to compete, allowing Chestnut the easy victory over any of the other competitors who have never come close to Chestnut’s numbers. Some here at Cereal Wednesday speculate that Chestnut won with 54 dogs while Kobayashi watched from the crowd because that is precisely how many dogs Kobayashi consumed to win his last title in 2006 before Chestnut came back in 2007 with a 66-dog upset over Kobayashi. (And perhaps that is why Kobayashi walked onto the stage after the competition and got himself arrested…)

Fascinating stuff. But what does that have to do with cereal? Well, in honor of the July Fourth competition, both NYCWD and I have agreed to enter into our own red, white, and blue adorned Special K Blueberry eating contest! Who wins? You have to watch to find out. But here’s a hint: NYCWD thought it tasted like CRAP while Poppy thought it tasted like CRACK.

Kellogg’s Special K Blueberry is a wheat and rice based cereal with blueberry oat clusters. It contains both natural and artificial blueberry flavor. The flakes are very hearty, very solid, and are coated with blueberry flavor. They taste more like natural blueberries than their artificial counterpart.

Nutrition stacks up as follows:

Surprisingly, Kellogg’s skimped on glue to hold the bag in the box so Special K Blueberry gets a deduction for the bag slip from Poppy. NYCWD hates the taste of the cereal completely so threw it one bowl for being patriotic in packaging.

Happy birthday to one of our biggest little fans, Thomas! We <3 U!

Taste: Like real blueberries wrapped in rice and oats (Poppy)… or, crap (NYCWD)
Box opening: Fine
Bag rippage: None
Bag slippage: Fell into the bowl
Sog factor: “50%”
Allergy alert: Wheat ingredients

NYCWD’s Cereal Wednesday Bowls:

Poppy’s Cereal Wednesday Bowls:

For more information about Kellogg’s Special K Blueberry please visit the Special K site.

If the video embedded above is not viewable, you can see it at Metacafe.

Holy cinnamon, Batman! My guest host today is my mullet-loving sidekick Robin!

(I need a better joke writer than myself. Anyone want the job? It pays in leftover, sogged out cereal.)

Today we’re reviewing Kellogg’s Corn Flakes Simply Cinnamon. If you’ve never in your life had Corn Flakes Proper then I highly recommend you try those first so that you have a frame of reference.

Corn Flakes Simply Cinnamon is a corn based cereal, as the name implies. It taste unfortunately like its plain parent cereal, Corn Flakes, which are very delicious but we didn’t buy a box of cinnamon cereal to have it taste like the plain variety. A little too far on the simple scale, not enough on the cinnamon scale.

Nutrition was so-so, but not enough to make us stand on our chairs and start screaming “DONNIE!” at the top of our lungs:

Here’s a tip from Robin: Use this cereal to coat your chicken then pan fry or bake it. The cinnamon will give it a little bit of zing in heated up form, we assure you.

Taste: Disappointingly not like the Cinnamon Toast Crunch smell that wafted from the box
Box opening: Way too hard
Bag rippage: None, but it opened hard
Bag slippage: Fell into Robin’s bowl – FAIL!
Sog factor: Who ordered the oatmeal?!
Allergy alert: Traces of soybean

Guests first!

Robin’s Cereal Wednesday Bowls:

Poppy’s Cereal Wednesday Bowls:

For more information about Corn Flakes Simply Cinnamon please visit the Kellogg’s site.

For more information about the cereals recalled by Kellogg’s on June 25, 2010 please visit the Cereal Wednesday news page.

We love you, Puppy.

If the video embedded above is not viewable, you can see it at these other fine video sharing sites: Vimeo, Viddler and Metacafe.

B-a-n-a-n-a-s! Go bananas! B-a-n-a-n-a-s! Go bananas! B-a-n-a-n-a-s! Go bananas!!

And that, ladies and gentleman, was the official cheer of Yawgoog Scout Reservation Camp Sandy Beach where I learned to love the banana.

(Clearly Poppy didn’t have a similar experience.)

Banana Nut Cheerios is a corn and oat based cereal by General Mills. It has that classically familiar Cheerios shape. The cereal is naturally flavored with real banana and natural banana flavor. Out of the box it has a strong banana flavor before the sog with a slight hint of nut. After the sog the cereal remains pretty crunchy but the banana flavor is more subtle, and actually more pleasant. If you go bananas over bananas eat the whole bowl quickly.

Banana Nut Cheerios stack up similarly in nutrition to its sister flavors:

The cereal is low in fat but also unfortunately low in fiber and protein.

For being a Cheerio powerful in flavor, but leaving a lot to be desired for box design and lack of a mascot, Banana Nut Cheerios gets less than the full stack of bowls.

Taste: STRONGLY of bananas, until it sogs to a more subtle flavor
Box opening: Easy
Bag rippage: None
Bag slippage: None
Sog factor: Remained crunchy
Allergy alert: Almond and wheat ingredients

Cereal Wednesday Bowls:

For more information about Banana Nut Cheerios please visit the Cheerios site.

Thanks to our friend Marty for this week’s Marbits!

Kellogg’s Cherry Frosted Pop-Tarts are a toaster-friendly breakfast pastry with a delicious cherry flavor. They’re very sweet, like candy or maraschino cherries. Their pink frosting has red sugar crystals topping it so they’re really tasty and have a great texture. Dawg says it best: It’s like a big cherry cookie.

To warm it up

Toaster: Put in toaster at lowest setting.
Microwave: Package suggests 2-3 seconds in microwave, but we recommend 12.
Poppy suggests: Let it cool down first before eating.
NYCWD prefers: Eat it right away.

Nutrition information

Cherry Frosted Pop-Tarts have lots of carbs, not from whole grains, and less than a gram of fiber, which makes Poppy sad but makes NYCWD cheer loudly.

Dawg’s Cereal Wednesday Bowls:

Poppy’s Cereal Wednesday Bowls:

For more information about Cherry Frosted Pop-Tarts please visit the Kellogg’s site.